The Columns | 25 www.TWHOA.net • 941.349.0194 • January 2021 • Island Visitor Publishing, LLC
The Garden Club wishes Everyone a Very Happy New Year Hope everyone and all your loved ones are healthy. I am writing this before we really know what is happening with the vaccine. Until we know more about what is happening with the pandemic, I see no way to for us to have any of our usual activities, or a meeting. Hopefully, this new year will bring us back our freedoms. We will continue to review the situation. In the meantime, we ask that everyone please treat the Butterfly Garden with respect. A great deal of time and money is put into it for everyone to enjoy. It is a safe haven for the butterflies and a tranquil place for us to sit and enjoy. No garbage should be thrown in it, and please pick up after your dog if you are walking by the garden and he/she decides this is a great place to do their duty. Did you know: There are more than 20 butterflies and moths listed as endangered, by the
GARDEN CLUB
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Most of these species are found in the United States and may become extinct due to loss of their habitat. More than 765 species of butterflies occur in North America, north of Mexico. Florida is home to a total of 187 butterfly species, the most of any state east of the Mississippi River. You can help butterflies in your own back yard by growing both host plants for larvae and nectar plants for adults. Visit the University of Florida’s website for a list of plants you can grow to benefit butterflies in your particular region of the state.
One of these butterflies is: The Florida Monarch butterfly whose population has dropped 80 percent since 2005 (from November 8th, 2018, Florida Museum of Natural History). A 37-year survey of Monarch populations in North Central Florida shows that caterpillars and butterflies have been declining since 1985 and have dropped by 80 percent since 2005. They found that Monarch’s springtime departure from Mexico is timed to coincide
with optimal growth of milkweed in the southeastern U.S. While adult Monarch butterflies can feed from a variety of plants, their young depend on milkweed as their sole source of nutrition, storing up the plant’s toxins to ward off predators. The Monarch butterfly will lay hundreds of eggs on milkweed over their brief lifetimes, but just over 2 percent of eggs survive to become fully grown caterpillars. We can help the Monarch by: 1. Not Using pesticides in Our Gardens. 2. Planting Native Milkweed. 3. Create a Monarch Way-Station. 4. Learn More. 5. Spread the Word Some butterfly gardeners have spoken to Linda Hoos about native milkweed and other native butterfly plants. There are two native nurseries Bill Milligan told Linda about: All Native Plants and Landscape in Fort Myers, 239-939-9663. There is also one on Sanibel called SCCF Native Landscape, 239-472-1932.
Don’t forget when your milkweeds get leggy and you start to see new growth at the bottom you can cut your plants back to six inches. If you plant butterfly plants in rotation, then you will always have nectar and host plants available and your butterflies will love you. The Garden Club wishes to Thank Everyone who has planted milkweed in their gardens. Rachelle DellaRocca 239-322-6386
See the January what to plant on page 26
